The White House roundly rejected a Wednesday morning report from The Washington Post claiming that President Donald Trump’s administration was planning to send a number of illegal aliens to the infamous prison at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt referred to the report — which cited unnamed “U.S. officials familiar with the matter” — as “Fake News,” and declared that it was “not happening.”
“This story is Fake News. Not happening,” she said.
According to The Washington Post’s report, the White House is “preparing to send thousands of foreigners to the infamous detention facility, including people from Britain, France and Italy, with no intent to notify their home governments.”
Citing anonymous officials — and claiming those officials provided the outlet with documents — the report said that those who could potentially be sent to Guantanamo Bay included a number from Haiti but also included “hundreds from friendly European nations, including Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey and Ukraine.”
The Post claimed that the officials had insisted on remaining anonymous “because the matter is considered highly sensitive.”
Some of the alleged plans outlined by The Post included preparations for medical screenings for up to 9,000 people – and the piece was careful to hedge by noting that the plans were “subject to change.” The Post attributed the push to move illegals to Guantanamo Bay to “immigration hard-liners” within the Trump administration who were pressuring Trump to ramp up deportations.
Leavitt was not the only one to call out The Post’s assertions. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell added, “This is [100%] Fake News.”
But others, like Marc Thiessen, who served as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, noted that the practice was not exactly unprecedented. “The Clinton administration housed migrants at Gitmo long before the war on terror,” he said.
